Standing at my booth at the Mill City Farmers Market yesterday, I looked over at my neighbor's booth and saw pretty baskets full of zucchini blossoms. They're in season right now for a short time. I've prepared the blossoms a number of ways, including stuffing them with herbed chevre, tossed in a little seasoned flour, and then fried in oil. Or, roughly chopped and added to a simple salad of tomatoes, cucumber, olive oil, lemon juice and balsamic. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, of public radio's Splendid Table, has a great recipe for pan-fried zucchini flowers. But, being in the sorbet state of mind, I started thinking about how to incorporate these beautiful blossoms into a frozen dessert. Zucchini Sorbet? No. Ah, cucumbers. Perfect.
Cucumber Lemon Sorbet with Zucchini Blossoms
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1/4 to 1/2 cup lemon juice
2 cups cucumber juice (4 small or 2 large cucumbers)
3 zucchini blossoms
Combine sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 5-10 minutes to create a simple syrup (make a little extra for sweetening your iced tea). Remove and cool. This should make around 1 1/2 cups of syrup.
Using a food processor, puree the skinned cucumbers. Strain through a sieve. For me, the easiest way to accomplish this task is to use a juicer, which has become my constant companion during my sorbet madness. Even with a juicer, I still take out the pulp and strain it for every last bit of juice.
In a separate bowl, add lemon juice, cucumber juice and 1 1/4 cup of simple syrup. Stir to combine and taste for balance. Add more simple syrup, if you'd like your sorbet sweeter. Be very careful not to over do it on the lemon juice. It gets more tart with the freezing process. The cucumber should be the main star here. Add 2 roughly chopped zucchini blossoms and the whole blossom (to infuse the mix). Stir and then chill for a few hours. Remove whole blossom before freezing in the ice cream cylinder. Freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.
If you are a fan of the Arnie Palmer, the iced tea/lemonade summer drink, not the golfer (is he really that refreshing?), use any leftover cucumber juice, lemon juice, and simple syrup to mix with your iced tea. It's a very refreshing cooler. Better yet, add a scoop of Cucumber Lemon Sorbet to your iced tea. Mmmm....that'll quench your thirst.
I guess, these days, I'm taking the whatever-is-on-hand approach to sweets in my kitchen. I'd love to say it's because I'm being economical and all that. But, it's because when I see fruit at this time of year, I can't seem to control how much I buy. Then, I'm left with trying to figure out how to use (read: eat) it all before it goes bad.
I bought 4 pints of blueberries from Heath Glen Organic Farm at the Mill City Farmers Market this past Saturday (actually, 5 pints - I ate one whole pint while selling shortbread at my booth). Fresh blueberries are quite the super-food, filled with anti-oxidants and vitamin C, so eating handfuls is good for you. They can also be frozen (freeze them individually by putting them on a pan in a single layer and freezing, then store them in a ziploc) and added to many treats throughout the year: smoothies, crumbles, pies, floating in champagne, you name it. Most of the blueberries were gobbled up by my family, but I had some left over in the fridge this morning. I also had half a seedless watermelon that was on its last legs, um, I mean, rind. So, to push my sorbet obsession-of-the-moment a little further, I decided to make Watermelon Blueberry Sorbet.
Watermelon Blueberry Sorbet
1/2 of a watermelon
1 cup blueberries
1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
Scrape the red flesh from the watermelon (don't lose any of the juice inside the watermelon) and put into a food processor. Pulse until smooth. You may have to do this in a few batches, since food processors have a low capacity for liquid.
Into a bowl, pour the processed watermelon through a sieve to get rid of any of the white seeds. Add the juice left behind from the scraped watermelon. Waste not; want not, right?
Puree blueberries, 1/2 cup of sugar and lemon juice until smooth and the sugar is well incorporated. Pour into a large measuring cup - I love my 8 cup measuring container.
Pour in enough watermelon juice to make 4 cups of liquid. Taste the mixture for sweetness, remembering that the freezing process mutes the sweetness. Add more sugar, if desired. Chill for at least an hour (or, if you just can't wait, put in the freezer until nice and cold). See my last blog posting (Coconut Lime Ice Cream) on how to process the sorbet in an ice cream maker.
I still have about 3 cups of watermelon juice in my fridge. And, there's a cucumber in there, too. Seems like that might be an interesting, and extremely refreshing, combination. Maybe I'll even throw in a handful of mint or basil. I'll have to see what's in my fridge, just waiting on the edge of despair.
More uses for fruit near the point of extinction in your fridge:
Last week, I had some Rainier cherries, black cap raspberries (culled from my over-grown brambles in the backyard), frozen rhubarb and one nectarine near the end of it's sweet life. So, I made jam. If you have about 1 1/2 pounds of fruit, you have the makings for jam.
Berry Rhubarb Jam
1# Berries (raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, etc.) and/or Cherries
1/3 cup water
1/2# rhubarb, chopped
1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar
Bring berries and water to a boil. Simmer until very tender. Strain into a bowl through a sieve to remove seeds, then return to pot (rinse pot to remove any leftover seeds). Add rhubarb, and any other non-berry fruit (like a nectarine), and simmer until broken down. Add sugar and cook until thick and bubbly. To test, hold spoon with jam on it at an angle - it shouldn't drip off. Also, taste for sweetness at this point. You can add a little more sugar, if you'd like. For thicker jam, use pectin as directed. Or, add 1/2 a peeled chopped apple (which contains some natural pectin) to the rhubarb berry mixture and cook until it all breaks down. Mash for a smoother jam. I pour the jam into a few small covered bowls and store in the fridge, since I know I'll eat it all within a couple of weeks. And, I haven't learned how to can, yet. That's the next lesson I'll be working on.
